About gender impact assessments

Gender impact assessments (GIAs) are a planning and assessment tool. They enable your organisation to evaluate how its policies, programs and services meet the needs of women, men and gender diverse people.

GIAs must be applied to either new or under-review policies, programs and services that have a direct and significant impact on the public.

The Commission’s best-practice toolkit sets out four key steps for your organisation to develop a GIA:

1. Defining the issues and challenges – for example, considering the different ways women, men and gender diverse people access and experience a service.
2. Understanding the policy context – for example, reviewing data and research and undertaking stakeholder engagement.
3. Options analysis – for example, developing options and assessing if they transform gender norms in a positive way.
4. Making recommendations – based on the evidence gathered, providing a recommended approach to implement.

Who needs to do a GIA

The Gender Equality Act 2020 requires around 300 organisations (duty holders, or ‘defined entities’ as described in the Act) to do GIAs. They include:

• public service bodies
• public entities
• special bodies
• local councils
• universities
• Court Services Victoria
• Office of Public Prosecutions.

When to do a GIA

• You need to do gender impact assessments any time your organisation develops or updates a ‘policy’, ‘program’, or ‘service’ that ‘directly and significantly affects the public’. To understand these key terms and whether a GIA is needed or not, read our guide to determine if a gender impact assessment is required.
• If your organisation is a duty holder, summary information about each of your GIAs will need to be included in progress reports; these are submitted to the commission every two years. Read more about gender equality obligation timelines.

Why GIAs are required

Gender impact assessments help your organisation see how its policies, programs and services might impact different people in different ways. If an organisation doesn’t think about how its work affects different people, it might unintentionally create or reinforce inequalities.

GIAs help ensure better and fairer outcomes for everyone.

This short video below illustrates the importance of gender impact assessments.

How to do a GIA

Our gender impact assessment toolkit is a step-by-step guide on how to complete a best-practice GIA. Our templates are where you can record information, analysis, and outcomes.